The clouds shifted, unblocking part of the moon, and light spilled across the tower, illuminating part of Rhys’s face. It appeared grimmer than it had a moment ago.
Even so, he was beautiful. Not in a perfect, Greek god sculpture kind of way, but in a pure, unabashedly masculine way. The dark stubble, the small scar slashing through his eyebrow, the gunmetal eyes…
My stomach did a slow roll as I struggled not to focus on how alone we were up here. We could do anything, and no one would know.
No one except us.
“Heard we’re leaving next week,” Rhys said. I might’ve imagined it, but I thought he sounded strained, like he, too, was fighting back something he couldn’t quite control.
“Yes.” I hoped my voice didn’t come across as shaky as it did to my own ears. “My grandfather’s condition is steady for now, and I need to wrap up my affairs in New York before I move back.”
I realized my mistake before the words fully left my mouth.
I hadn’t told Rhys about Nikolai’s abdication yet, which meant he didn’t know about my plans to move back to Athenberg. Permanently.
Rhys stilled. “Move back?” He sounded calm, but the storm brewing in his eyes was anything but. “Here?”
I swallowed hard. “Yes.”
“You didn’t mention that, princess.” Still calm, still dangerous, like the eye of a hurricane. “Seems like an important thing for me to know.”
“It’s not finalized, but that’s the plan. I…want to be closer to my grandfather.” That was partly true. He’d recovered nicely from his hospital visit and he had people monitoring him around the clock, but I still worried about him and wanted to be close by should anything happen. However, as crown princess, I was also required to return to Athenberg for my queen training. I was already behind by decades.
Rhys’s nostrils flared. “When were you planning to tell me this?”
“Soon,” I whispered.
The palace was keeping Nikolai’s abdication under tight wraps, and I wasn’t supposed to talk about it until closer to the official announcement. I could’ve told Rhys I was moving back to Eldorra earlier using the excuse I just gave him, but I’d wanted to pretend everything was normal for a while longer.
It was stupid, but my mind had been all over the place lately, and I couldn’t make sense of my own actions.
Something flickered in Rhys’s eyes. If I didn’t know better, I would think he was hurt. “Well, now you can finally be rid of me,” he said lightly, but his face might as well have been etched from stone. “I’ll talk to my boss on Monday, get the paperwork started for the transition.”
Transition.
My breath, my heart. Everything stopped. “You’re resigning?”
“You don’t need me here. You have the Royal Guard. I resign, or the palace releases me from my contract. Same ending.”
The thought hadn’t crossed my mind, but it made sense. The palace had hired Rhys because they hadn’t wanted to pull any Royal Guard members away from their family when I was living in the U.S. Now that I was moving back, they didn’t need a contractor.
“But I…” I do need you.
Rhys and I may not have gotten along in the beginning, but now, I couldn’t imagine not having him by my side.
The kidnapping. Graduation. My grandfather’s hospitalization. Dozens of trips, hundreds of events, thousands of tiny moments like the time he’d ordered me chicken soup when I was sick or when he’d lent me his jacket after I left mine at home.
He’d been with me through it all.
“So, that’s it.” I blinked away the ache behind my eyes. “We have one more month and then you’ll just…leave.”
Rhys’s eyes darkened to a near black, and a muscle jumped in his jaw. “Don’t worry, princess. Maybe you’ll get Booth as your bodyguard again. It’ll be like old times for you two.”
I was suddenly, irrationally angry. At him, his dismissive tone, the entire situation.
“Maybe I will,” I snapped. “I can’t wait. He was the best bodyguard I ever had.”
It was a low blow, and judging by the way Rhys stiffened, it hit its target.
“Good. Then it’s a win-win all around,” he said in a cold, controlled voice. He stood and walked to the exit without looking back.
The door slammed behind him, causing me to jump.
The ache behind my eyes intensified until a stray tear slipped down my cheek. I wiped it away angrily.
I had no reason to cry. I’d changed bodyguards plenty of times before, and I was used to people leaving. Rhys hadn’t even been with me for that long. Booth had been with me for four years, and I hadn’t cried when he left.
Another tear fell. I wiped that one away too.
Princesses don’t cry. Elin’s disapproving voice echoed in my head.
She was right.
I refused to spend my last month of freedom agonizing over Rhys Larsen, of all people. We would return to New York, I would sort my affairs, and I would soak up every minute of my remaining time as a mere princess, not queen to be.
Forget propriety and protocol. If there was ever a time to live my life the way I wanted, it was now.
And if Rhys had a problem with that? Too bad.